[By WALTER S. MOSSBERG, Wall Street Journal]

For the many companies designing tablets based on Google‘s Android operating system to compete with Apple‘s dominant iPad, there are twin challenges. The obvious one is to convince consumers to buy something other than the iPad 2. The less obvious one is to differentiate their products from all the other slates based on Android.

Last week, a new Android contender arrived in the U.S. market that aims to be different in three major ways. It’s the G-Slate, built by Korean electronics giant LG and sold by T-Mobile.

The G-Slate uses Google’s standard Honeycomb software—the version of Android especially created for tablets—and is the first Honeycomb tablet in the U.S. to offer 4G cellular data speeds and 3-D video creation and viewing. It sports a screen size—8.9 inches—that falls between the 10-inch dimension of the iPad and the Motorola Xoom, and the 7-inch dimension used by the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Research in Motion PlayBook.

I’ve been testing the G-Slate, and in my view, it performs pretty well overall—about as well as the first Honeycomb tablet, the Xoom. But it isn’t nearly as good a choice as the iPad 2.

Of its three big differentiators, the only clear winner is the 4G cellular capability, which is much speedier than cellular data on the iPad, or on any other Honeycomb tablet I know of. The 3-D feature, which requires the use of 1950s-style colored glasses, seems like a parlor trick to me. And the in-between size, while potentially attractive for one-handed use, is undercut by the fact that, somehow, despite being smaller, the G-Slate is actually a bit heavier than the iPad 2, and a third thicker.

Then there is the price. One reason for the iPad juggernaut is that the base, Wi-Fi-only, 16-gigabyte model costs just $499.

If you buy the G-Slate without a phone contract, it costs $750. The comparable iPad 2, with the same 32 gigabytes of memory offered by the G-Slate, both Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity, plus its bigger screen, is $729.

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And what about the 3-D feature, which is enabled by twin cameras on the back?

Well, it worked for me. But I had to use an included pair of glasses with one red and one blue lens to see these videos, and they made me a bit queasy.

Emailing the videos to a standard computer didn’t preserve the 3-D effect, even with the glasses on. T-Mobile says a 3-D TV can display the 3-D videos, but I wasn’t able to test this. Because of the glasses and the sharing limitations, I feel that this 3-D feature is mostly a marketing tool.

Bottom line: The G-Slate isn’t as good a tablet as the iPad 2. I’d only recommend it for people who want the higher cellular speeds, or who prefer Android.

Read the full article here:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704187604576289074199185498.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_RIGHTTopCarousel_1